356 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 7, 



Numerous horns of Red Deer have been found in the peaty mud, 

 generally (as I was informed) at 5 or 6 feet below the surface, 

 seldom deeper; many attached to the skull, others separate, and 

 with the appearance of having been shed naturally. What is most 

 remarkable, several of those which were found with the skulls at- 

 tached had been sawn off just above the brow antlers, — not broken, 

 but cut off clean and smoothly, evidently by human agency. Some 

 of these horns are of large size, measuring 9 inches round imme- 

 diately below the brow antler. 



The black peaty mud (which is of the same quality beneath as 

 above the layer of moss) rests on a bed of light grey sandy marl, 

 which effervesces briskly with acids. This is the lowest stratum 

 that has been reached, owing to the difficulty of keeping out the 

 water. I could find no trace of shells, nor learn that any had been 

 found, either in the peat or the marl. Wood is found in the peat, 

 though not in great quantity : we found some pieces, apparently of 

 birch, and saw a trunk of considerable size, I believe of an oak, 

 which had lately been dug out. The wood of this is of a dark brown 

 colour, and was in a very soft and almost pasty condition when fresh 

 and wet, but when dry becomes tolerably hard. Its tissues, at least 

 the woody fibre and medullary rays, appear to be in good preserva- 

 tion ; but, as is usually the case with wood under similar circum- 

 stances, it has become too opake to be easily examined under the 

 microscope. 



The peat shows appearances of bedding, and thin horizontal 

 layers or seams of white sand may be observed in it here and there, 

 but are seldom continuous for more than a very few feet, often only 

 for a few inches. Stones are also found singly imbedded in it in 

 various places, without any sort of order; partly irregular flints, 

 partly rolled and rounded pebbles of quartz, exactly as in the gravel 

 of the country. 



Numerous posts of oak-wood, shaped and pointed by human art, 

 were found standing erect, entirely buried in the peat. 



It would appear, from the facts I have stated, that a great part of 

 the thickness of peaty mud overlying the bed of moss must have 

 been accumulated before the time when the Red Deer became extinct 

 in this part of England ; and consequently, that the age of the bed 

 of moss must be some centuries at least. Dr. Lindley, in his cele- 

 brated experiment* on the destructibility of different plants by im- 

 mersion in water, found that the very few kinds of Mosses which 

 were subjected to his experiment decomposed rapidly ; and he in- 

 ferred, that the extreme rarity of this family of plants in a fossil 

 state was owing to their perishable nature. The fact observed at 

 Wretham, however, seems to show that (as might have been sus- 

 pected) the aquatic Mosses are not rapidly destroyed by exposure 

 to moisture ; and I think we must seek some other explanation for 

 the almost universal absence of the Musci from the strata deposited 

 in former geological periods. 



* See Fossil Flora of Great Britain, vol. ill. p. 4. 



